Got a new Satellite receiver...

[atari2600a]

Bought a used Dish Network Dual-Tuner DVR Reciever today (For $10!!!!!), & upon calling up Dish Network, they said that the reciever was "Non Transferrable", meaning It's locked onto another account, which means the reciever was either Leased & sold, or stolen.

Still, it's a multi-hundred dollar reciever, so there must be SOMETHING I can do with it. (It has some movies & episodes of SmallVille on the DVR still)

Anyone know of anyting I can do w/ it? Any way I could hack it? It still works, I can watch the free channels you can get w/o a subscription (NASA, World Music, PPV, Interactive channels, ect...), I just can't put it on my fathers Dish Network account to get any subscribed channels...

(maybe I can buy a smart card for it off of eBay & use it then!)

 

[Erik]

I doubt it's stolen. Probably someone who had Dish, realized that it sucked and switched to DirectTV.

I can't imagine that it's really locked to an account. They usually have serialized cards in them that can be transferred from account to account easily.

I'm not sure who you talked to, but I'd bump it up the chain a bit to get the real story.

As for hacking, those are little Linux computers, so. . .

 

[atari2600a]

Are you sure Dish Network uses Linux on their recievers? It could be Tivo you're thinking about...

The newer recievers don't require smart cards, though they still do have the smart card readers, I was thinking that maybe I'd be able to get a smart card off eBay & use it instead of the serial number built into the unit itself.

It was my father who called really, so All I know is what he told me.

 

[Erik]

I'm pretty sure all DVRs use Linux in some form as a base OS. I can't imagine they try to use Windows, for instance.

If you really want to figure this out go to a DVR specific site. There are tons of them out there and they have detailed information about how to get various units to work, etc.

Good luck!

 

[atari2600a]

***UpDaTe***

I looked at the back of my reciever, & it's a "DishDVR 522". It does in fact use linux. I think I'll take the HD out, plug it into my PC, look at it under Linux, maybe transfer the movies to CD, & see what else I can do.

 

[atari2600a]

NEED HELP! Linux recognises the HD (which is in 3 partitions), but it says "Unable to mount drive" (or something similar). I'm got good w/ Linux really...

It also says:

Error: Drive is not removable
Error: Unable to start pmount

Since everybody here knows much more about Linux than I do, can someone help me out? I really want to get this drive working, so I can burn the movies to CD, back everything (else) on it up, then harness it's 160GB awsomeness for my PC! Only then will my awsome 1GHz 256MB PC be up to date! (side the crappy graphics card)